Difficulties that children with autism have in pointing and showing objects to other people may emerge from earlier problems with simple face-to-face interaction, according to new research sponsored by the ESRC. Findings from a two-year study led by Dr Susan Leekam, of the Department of Psychology, University of Durham, could be important for understanding the early language and communication problems found in these children. Dr Leekam said: "We have known for a long time that children with autism have special difficulties with pointing and showing objects to other people. Until recently, however, many researchers believed that this problem was due to the child's lack of awareness that people's thoughts and reactions were directed towards objects and events in the world around them.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 4020 - Posted: 07.10.2003

A 12-year-old girl, whose family thought she suffered from anorexia, in fact died from a rare brain tumour which caused her to waste away, an inquest has heard. Charlotte Collett, who weighed just three stone and nine pounds (23 kilograms) when she died, was found unconscious by her mother in her bedroom at their home in Well Road, East Cowes, Isle of Wight last July. An inquiry had been launched and Charlotte's mother, Katrina, 47, arrested in connection with her death. No charges were brought after medical reports showed Charlotte died as a result of a brain tumour. The inquest heard that when Charlotte was taken to hospital, her sister and mother told paramedics she had been suffering from anorexia and had been bullied at school. But the coroner returned a verdict of death by natural causes. (C) BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 4019 - Posted: 07.09.2003

As the brain dies, new artistry is born Brad Evenson, National Post Jancy Chang began losing her mind in tiny brushstrokes. In the mid-1980s, the San Francisco high school art teacher noticed she had trouble reading. Soon, she found it difficult to plan lessons. At first, she hid her problems by getting her teenage son to help her. But later, words would slip from her grasp and eventually she could not remember the names of any of her students or control her classroom. Like a portrait painted in reverse, the familiar likeness of Jancy Chang was becoming a blank canvas. Yet at the same time, a strange but exciting image was taking its place. Two years before retiring in 1995, Ms. Chang abandoned her solitary art studio, where she painted demure watercolours of Chinese folklore. Paper and pen in hand, she began sketching people in cafés and at concerts. The ink drawings were less refined than her earlier work, but more intriguing. Her personality changed, too. Ordinarily a reserved woman, Ms. Chang grew uncharacteristically friendly, ignoring social cues and entering the conversations of strangers. Suddenly, in 1997, amid a growing inability to speak or read, Ms. Chang produced some of her wildest and most original paintings. The constraints of her formal training slipped away. She splashed large swatches of red, turquoise and purple acrylics on paper. © Copyright 2003 National Post

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 4018 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Pain is such a personal, subjective experience that it has always been difficult to objectively measure it. “We’ve all met people who seem like they’re very sensitive to pain and people who seem like they’re not sensitive at all to pain,” says Robert Coghill, assistant professor at the department of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. And because of this difference in pain sensitivity, doctors are not always confident about the accuracy of their patients’ self-reports of pain. This makes it difficult for doctors to prescribe the right dose of pain medication. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 4017 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Huntington's disease is an inherited condition that can strike people as young as 30. Some symptoms include mood swings, depression, irritability, and involuntary movements which make it difficult for patients to drive and feed themselves. Concentration on intellectual tasks becomes increasingly difficult, and patients have trouble learning new things, remembering facts, or making decisions. "We have no cures," says Henry Paulson, associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa School of Medicine. "It's a devastating, ultimately fatal disease." Humans have two copies of most genes. Huntington's disease is one of several degenerative diseases caused by an error in the DNA code of one copy of a gene. While the good copy tells brain cells how to build a needed protein, the bad copy results in a toxic protein that kills brain cells. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 4016 - Posted: 06.24.2010

To sleep, perchance to dream, said Shakespeare's Hamlet, was perhaps nobler than bearing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But sleeping offers no such graceful escape for patients with obstructive sleep apnea and REM behavior disorder. Now a pair of new studies provide the first hint that faulty brain chemistry leads to these sleep disorders--a first step toward treatments that get at the roots of the problems. Most people lie still while they dream, but patients with REM behavior disorder act out their dreams: They thrash around, fall out of bed, and occasionally pummel their partners. Similar symptoms appear in patients with a rare and fatal neurological disease called multiple symptoms atrophy (MSA); these patients sometimes lose neurons in a brain structure called the striatum that coordinates movement. So a team led by neurologist Sid Gilman of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor looked to see if the failure of their dopamine-producing neurons might lead to REM behavior disorder. They studied 13 patients as they slept wired to instruments that measured the extent to which their brains told muscles to contract. They also ran PET scans to measure how many dopamine-producing neurons the patients had left in the striatum. In results reported in the first of two July issues of Neurology, the MSA patients had just two-thirds the dopamine-producing neurons as normal subjects. Moreover, the patients with the fewest neurons flailed the most, suggesting that "dopamine deficiency may lead to REM behavior disorder," Gilman says. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tasteless compound first found to heighten more than one taste. MICHAEL HOPKIN Food researchers have found a compound that enhances salty, sweet and savoury tastes. The chemical is the first known to heighten more than one type of flavour. The discovery could aid the quest for foods with reduced levels of salt, sugar and monosodium glutamate (MSG). MSG is thought to cause the brief but agonizing headaches sometimes dubbed 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'. There are five categories of taste receptor: salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. The most recently recognized, umami, detects 'meaty' or 'savoury' sensations. It is stimulated by foods such as soy sauce that contain glutamate compounds. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 4014 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PHILADELPHIA -- Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have found new support for the age-old advice to "sleep on it." Mice allowed to sleep after being trained remembered what they had learned far better than those deprived of sleep for several hours afterward. The researchers also determined that the five hours following learning are crucial for memory consolidation; mice deprived of sleep five to 10 hours after learning a task showed no memory impairment. The results are reported in the May/June issue of the journal Learning & Memory. "Memory consolidation happens over a period of hours after training for a task, and certain cellular processes have to occur at precise times," said senior author Ted Abel, assistant professor of biology at Penn. "We set out to pinpoint the specific window of time and area of the brain that are sensitive to sleep deprivation after learning."

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4013 - Posted: 07.09.2003

Independent research groups have uncovered a new class of proteins, called the chaplins, that function like amyloid fibrils to allow reproductive growth in the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. Amyloid proteins are most commonly recognized for their role in Alzheimer's disease, where they aggregate into insoluble, mesh-like plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. This finding reveals an unprecedented role for amyloid-like proteins in Gram-positive bacteria. S. coelicolor is a soil-dwelling bacterium that, along with its relatives, produces the majority of naturally derived antibiotics (e.g., tetracycline and erythromycin), as well as many antitumor, antifungal, and immunosuppressant agents. Unlike most other prokaryotes, S. coelicolor has a complex life cycle, producing two different cell types depending upon environmental conditions: vegetative substrate hyphae that grow in moist soil, and aerial hyphae that grow in air and give rise to reproductive spores.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4012 - Posted: 07.09.2003

Atlanta —Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, U.S. and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings, “the semi-living artist” – a picture-drawing robot in Perth, Australia whose movements are controlled by the brain signals of cultured rat cells in Atlanta. Gripping three colored markers positioned above a white canvas, the robotic drawing arm operates based on the neural activity of a few thousand rat neurons placed in a special petri dish that keeps the cells alive. The dish, a Multi-Electrode Array (MEA), is instrumented with 60 two-way electrodes for communication between the neurons and external electronics. The neural signals are recorded and sent to a computer that translates neural activity into robotic movement. ©2003 Georgia Institute of Technology

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 4011 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service A single viral protein causes behavioural changes in mice similar to those experienced by people with mental illness, reveals a study by Japanese researchers The effects of the protein, produced by a common pathogen called the Borna disease virus (BDV), may help scientists understand how viruses could contribute to psychiatric disease in humans. Viruses like BDV, influenza and HIV are suspected of playing a role in the development of psychiatric disorders, but so far no specific link has been shown. While one in three healthy people are infected with BDV - which attacks the central nervous system ­nearly 100 per cent of people with severe mood disorders have the virus, found a study in 2001. Animal models have revealed a more direct link between viruses and altered behaviour - mice infected with different viruses develop hyperactivity and cognitive deficits. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — For the first time, scientists have identified a member of the animal kingdom that dies spontaneously during sex. While other animals, such as salmon and mayflies, die shortly after mating, the male Argiope aurantia is the first known species for which mating is an instantaneous trigger for death. According to a paper published in the current Royal Society Biology Letters , the male spider must insert both of his sexual organs, called palps, into the female's genital opening. Death happens just after insertion of the second palp. Copyright © 2003 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4009 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BONNIE ROTHMAN MORRIS Dyslexia appears to be caused by two distinct types of brain problems, a new study has found. The researchers, from Yale, used scanning devices to examine the brains of 43 young adults with known reading disabilities while they performed reading tasks. Another group of 27 good readers were also studied. All the subjects had been tracked for reading ability since elementary school. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 4008 - Posted: 07.08.2003

By NATALIE ANGIER Suppose that dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia was right when he fulminated recently that, by overturning the Texas antisodomy law, the Supreme Court was paving the way for "same-sex marriage." What's the big deal about gay nuptials, besides the fact that Canada got there first? After all, when two people with matching sex chromosomes select each other as long-term partners, they're being only slightly more emphatic in a strategy that scientists say may explain mate choice among a great majority of heterosexuals, too. As a new report demonstrates with the no-nonsense zing of the phrase "I do," humans often seek in a spouse the sort of person they know best: themselves. Beautiful people want beautiful partners. The well-heeled covet Prada-clad companions. Those who are devoted to kith, kids and unabridged Passover seders expect no less from the person who adorably snores beside them each night. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4007 - Posted: 07.08.2003

Detergent delivers genetic medicine to mice with muscular dystrophy. HELEN R. PILCHER A mouse study raises hopes that injections of the DNA-like molecule RNA might one day help to treat the muscle-wasting disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy. For the first time in a live animal, RNA therapy has produced improvements that last for up to three months1. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is an inherited disease that affects 1 in 3,500 children, mainly boys. Sufferers inherit a fault in the gene encoding the protein dystrophin, causing most to die in early adulthood. The new approach effectively corrects the flawed gene. It targets RNA - the intermediate between DNA and protein. Snippets of RNA, injected directly into the muscle, help edit out damaged pieces of host RNA. Muscle cells can then produce the missing dystrophin protein. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Muscles; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4006 - Posted: 06.24.2010

First evidence of neurochemical basis for obstructive sleep apnea and REM behavior disorder found ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The first tantalizing clues that chemical imbalances in the brain may be partly to blame for certain life-disrupting sleep disorders are being reported in two new studies by University of Michigan Health System researchers. In two papers in the July 8 issue of the journal Neurology, the team reports apparent links between deficits in brain chemistry and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). Both are relatively common sleep problems that disturb the slumber -- and daytime behavior -- of millions of Americans. The new findings were made using two types of neurochemical brain scans and detailed sleep studies in 13 patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and fatal degenerative neurological disease almost always accompanied by severe sleep disorders. Their results from the MSA patients, who all had both sleep apnea and REM behavior disorder, were very different from those of 27 healthy control subjects. Specifically, the researchers found that MSA patients had a far lower density of certain brain cells, or neurons, that produce the key chemicals dopamine and acetylcholine. The greater their lack, the worse their sleep problems were.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4005 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Not looks or money but rather life-long fidelity is what most people seek in an ideal mate, according to a Cornell University behavioral study that also confirmed the "likes-attract" theory: We tend to look for the same characteristics in others that we see in ourselves. The study began when Cornell University students in an animal-behavior class conducted a scientific survey of 978 heterosexual residents of Ithaca, N.Y., ages 18-24. Hoping to learn whether likes attract, students asked their male and female survey subjects to rate the importance they placed on 10 attributes in a long-term partner -- and to rate themselves on the same attributes. The student-gathered results, reported by their instructors, Peter M. Buston and Stephen T. Emlen, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS early edition July 1, 2003), are raising eyebrows among scholars of evolutionary psychology, making news and sparking debate around the world.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4004 - Posted: 07.08.2003

Insect uses moon as nocturnal compass Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer The moon is a quarter of a million miles away, and it may seem irrelevant to the evolution of life on Earth. It isn't totally irrelevant, though: Many a dung beetle owes its survival to the baleful rays of the moon. Without those rays, new research shows, the dung beetle couldn't find its way through nocturnal, predator-haunted terrain. True, you may not care what happens to dung beetles. They are among the more embarrassing members of the insect world, given their taste for, well, excrement; it's a prime source of nutrition for them. Upon finding fecal matter, they roll it into nutritious clumps, which they laboriously push to a safe place. ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 4003 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists are encouraged by the early success of treatment which may eventually help patients with a form of muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a wasting disease caused by mutations on a particular gene. It is the most common muscular dystrophy, affecting one in 3,500 children - most of whom die early in life as a result. The mutations on the gene stop it producing the chemical needed to protect muscle cells and prevent wasting. Some experts believe that it may be possible to alleviate the disease by replacing the gene entirely. However, a slightly different strategy has paid dividends for researchers at the Medical Research Council's Clinical Sciences Centre Instead of trying to insert an entirely new version of the gene - called the dystrophin gene - which is problematic simply because of its large size, scientists are trying to issue the body instructions to ignore the faulty bits. While this, if successful, does not completely correct the problem, it does mean that a body chemical is produced that is almost as effective as the normal version. The technique, called "anti-sense" therapy, might also be easier to get working in a drug than full-blown gene therapy. (C) BBC

Keyword: Muscles; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4002 - Posted: 07.08.2003

Long-term stress may cause illness by prematurely ageing the immune system, research suggests. Scientists have discovered stressful experiences can boost production of chemicals that regulate the body's immune system. One of these, interleukin 6 (IL-6), naturally increases with age, and is linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and other age-related conditions. A team led by Dr Ronald Glaser, from Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, US, measured levels of this chemical in 119 older men and women who were caring for a spouse with dementia. Over six years, levels of the chemical increased four times faster in the carers compared with 106 people not providing care. Former carers continued to have elevated IL-6 for up to three years after the death of the spouse they were looking after. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stress; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 4001 - Posted: 07.06.2003